The vehicle was a sort of bus, although the noise of a gasoline engine or the purring of a fission engine would have shocked Steve here on the world called Uashalume. As it turned out, the bus started with a whining whistle which quickly climbed to the super-sonic and faded beyond the level human ears could reach. Within the vehicle there were no seats, but the floor had been divided into two-foot squares, a thin white line marking off each box. When each man had occupied his square, the bus slipped away from the squat building and was soon streaking down the roadway at a good clip.
Steve saw other buildings, most of them squat and shapeless. And now, with the coming of daylight, he could see some of the inhabitants of Uashalume. He'd steeled himself for it. He hadn't expected human beings. Any variety of six-legged, multi-tentacled, bug-eyed creatures would have been strictly in order.
He gasped.
He got more than he bargained for. Hardly two of the creatures gazing in at them were alike! The differences were not those you might expect to find among the members of a particular species. The differences were extreme.
A furry thing hovered alongside the open-windowed bus on six gauze-like wings.
Multiple eyes stared up at them out of a pool of amorphous protoplasm.
A bony, stick-like creature with four arms and one cyclopean eye covering almost its entire head peered at them.
An ecto-skeletoned monstrosity made clicking noises as they passed.
Big horrors and little horrors.
Steve found himself laughing harshly. What did all his knowledge of Extra-terrestrial zoology amount to now? Extra-terrestrial—that meant the Solar System, one tiny, inconsequential corner of a great galaxy. But here, here on Uashalume, denizens of a hundred Solar Systems might have been gathered.